The Israeli army said that it had determined an image circulating on social media that shows a soldier in south Lebanon hitting a statue of Jesus Christ is authentic and depicts one of its troops, reports AFP.

The image appears to show an Israeli soldier using a sledgehammer to strike the head of a statue of a crucified Jesus that had fallen off of a cross.

Arab media reports indicated that the statue was in the Christian village of Debl in south Lebanon, near the border with Israel.

The Debl municipality told AFP that the statue was located in the village, but could not confirm whether it had been damaged.

The Israel army said it viewed the incident with “great severity”, adding that the “soldier’s conduct is wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops”, in a post to its official X account on Monday.

“Following the completion of an initial examination regarding a photograph published earlier today of an IDF soldier harming a Christian symbol, it was determined that the photograph depicts an IDF soldier operating in southern Lebanon,” it said in the post.

The incident is being investigated by the Northern Command and is currently being “addressed through the chain of command”, the military added.